Cleopatra Tomb Updates!

UPDATE! Welcome! I was surprised to see so much traffic on this post today, I figured there had to be news. This may be the news you seek, as there is a report on radar survey of the site (Click HERE) discussed in this post. Here is what Zawi Hawass says:

Dr. Hawass said that the expedition has so far found a beautiful head of Cleopatra, along with 22 coins bearing her image. The statue and coins show her as a beauty, contradicting the idea recently suggested by an English museum curator that the queen was quite ugly. The finds from Taposiris reflect a charm that could have captured the hearts of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive. Moreover, the features of the sculpted head show no sign of African ancestry, contradicting a recently advanced theory. The team has also found many amulets, along with a beautiful headless statue dating to the Ptolemaic Period. Among the most interesting finds is a unique mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some similarity to known portraits of Mark Antony himself.

I followed up on the news regarding Cleopatra’s tomb. Here is an update from a learned Egyptologist.

Press report: “Archaeologists discover statues of Cleopatra, Aphrodite”

“An alabaster head of Cleopatra and a mask thought to belong to her lover Mark Antony have been found near Egypt’s Mediterranean city of Alexandria, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Monday. The two treasures, a bronze statue of Goddess Aphrodite and a headless royal statue from the Ptolemaic dynasty (..) were discovered by a joint Egyptian-Dominican Republic team of archeologists in the Tapsiris Magna temple. (..) Some 20 bronze coins stamped with Cleopatra’s face were found [at an earlier date, see EEF NEWS (507)] in  underground tunnels 50 metres (164 feet) deep in the archeological
site (..) The teams had originally been searching for Cleopatra’s tomb but Hawass “categorically denied” that they were any closer to finding the queen’s burial place. “We have found nothing that indicates the presence of the tomb,” he said, adding that the search for the tombs will restart in November. (..)”

There are many duplicate or less detailed press reports around, so only listing those that are somewhat different:

“(…) A fortnight ago Hawass’s team discovered a bust of Mark Antony, the Roman general who became Cleopatra’s lover. (..) Work on the site has been suspended until the summer heat
abates and is due to resume in November, when Hawass \ will use radar to search for hidden chambers. (..) John Baines, professor of Egyptology at Oxford University, warned that searching for royal tombs often proved a “hopeless” task. He also doubted that Antony would be buried alongside his lover. “It’s unlikely Mark Antony would have a tomb that anyone would be able to discover because he was the enemy at the time he died,” he said. Hawass, however, remains defiant. “This is our theory. Others may disagree, but we are searching to see if we can prove it,” he said.”

(..) “We’ve found tunnels with statues of Cleopatra and many coins bearing her face, things you wouldn’t expect in a typical temple,”  Hawass said. [The mission] has found a bust of the Roman General Marc Antony two weeks ago, which prompts Hawass to believe Marc Antony’s last wish of being buried with Cleopatra may haveb een carried out, despite the turbulent political struggles at the time. (..)”

Press report: “Cleopatra Bust Among Treasures Found
in Egypt Temple”

The only real new info in here:

“(…) While searching the site’s [i.e. of the Taposiris Magna temple] network of underground shafts and tunnels, Hawass stumbled across skeletons that he s of early Christians hiding from Roman authorities. (..) He has explored about 95 percent of the site. (..)”

However, also opinions of two sceptical scholars are cited:
“(..) John Baines, Egyptologist at Oxford University’s Oriental
Institute, says: “(..) Masks similar to the one [that has been
found and that] Hawass thinks might have belonged to Marc
Antony were “normally part of a burial and are relatively
common objects from Greco-Roman Egypt.”

Mary Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University,
said she is very doubtful that the site will contain the tomb of
Cleopatra. “I would have thought it very unlikely that Marc Antony as buried with her. Of course, if the title ‘Tomb of Cleopatra’ was pinned on [this site], it would be a huge tourist attraction,” she said. “I am not, needless to say, impugning the archaeological credentials of Mr. Hawass, but it’s hard not to think that such factors play some part in the enthusiasm surrounding this discovery.” (..)”

For updates of a more current nature, check the status of the monstrous stimulus package here!